TAKE ONE May 2020
Gardener News
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TAKE ONE No. 205
The Importance of Gardening During the COVID-19 Pandemic By Michelle Infante-Casella Rutgers NJAES
Tom Castronovo/Photo
What can gardening do to help with the coronavirus pandemic? Gardening has always been touted as a relaxing recreational activity that can provide great personal rewards. During this time, when many people are working at home and students are learning at home, gardening can be a positive family-inclusive activity to adopt. Remote schooling is new for most all students in our community. Hands-on activities like gardening can encourage children to participate in a way that will enhance learning. Gardening can teach young, pre-school and elementaryaged children, to reinforce skills such as measurements, addition, subtraction, counting, sorting into categories and colors. Practicing motor skills and learning work ethic are also life skills taught through gardening. From a mental aspect, growing a vegetable garden may be a way for adults and children to cope with boredom and help families gain a sense of security. Historical experiences during trying times have given us examples of how important gardening can be in our society. With World War I came food shortages. Everyone in the U.S. was encouraged by the federal government to plant a Liberty Garden. The U.S. School Garden Army was formed during this era to teach children to garden and help them feel
a sense of contribution toward the war effort. Liberty gardens went away soon after WWI ended in 1918, since a high percentage of America’s workforce was already engaged in farming and other agricultural jobs. In the 1930s, the Great Depression had millions of people out-of-work and desperately poor people gardened to survive. They grew a limited range of basic foods that were easy to grow, mostly potatoes and beans, that were filling, high in calories and nutritious. By the early 1940s, World War II emerged and, once again, the public was asked to help the war effort. National Victory Gardens began and everyone who was able-bodied gardened – individual families and community groups. In 1944, 40 percent of the food grown in the U.S. came from National Victory Gardens. In 1945, WWII ended, and farmers who survived the war went back to working the land. Fresh food was once again abundant and predominantly on farms. Food rationing ended, and, like postWWI, gardening lost popularity. In the 1970s, exorbitant energy costs and high inflation caused the price for food and other necessities to soar. In this era, more people were living in cities than ever before. Many urbanites came from foreign countries and, like the immigrants before them, struggled financially. Besides financial reasons, immigrant populations missed growing foods popular in their homelands. City dwellers searched for any garden space and reclaimed areas (Cont. on Page 21)